In December I took part in the KAL of the annual Advent Calendar Shawl. On Wollkistchen's site you can still find the patterns. I used a wool/silk yarn, dyed by Loret Karman. When the knitting was finished it was the day before Christmas and the shawl looked like a rag! A Eucalan bath and some serious blocking worked wonders. Unfortunately I couldn't do that until this week, because I always block these big things on the floor and I couldn't bend down for such a long time. I saw the shawl lying there, was annoyed about not being able to finish the work, but it had to wait.

In November I knit Leaving, a pattern on Ravelry by Anne Hanson. The pattern is beautiful, but I don't like my result. I had a big cone of machine knitting yarn in my stash and wanted to use that. I'm still trying to diminish my huge yarn/fiber stash. But there was a reason why this cone was still in it. Although I do like the colour, the yarn is a bit dull and for too hot! The pattern also draws in a lot, in spite of some serious blocking, and so it feels as if the sleeves are far too narrow. The cardi is on my shelves. One day I'll wear it. Perhaps.

Because I hate sewing seams in handknits, I liked the idea of Ann Budd's book on Top-Down sweaters, in which sweaters are knit in the round from the neck, without any sewing. I bought the app for my iPad and this really is great to have. I started making the first sweater, the Fibonacci rings, that was completely described in the book, but there are diagrams in it for many different models, sweaters as well as cardigans, for any thinkable size and every yarnsize. I love this book!

The yarn I bought at a shop that sold it very cheap. I used almost all available colours, but the balls are so big (100 grams each) that I didn't need many. The whole sweater didn't cost me more than 10 euros. I wanted to try out the pattern and the yarn. The yarn especially, because until now I had only woven babyblankets in this yarn. They have been used for many years now (are still very much in use) have been washed a lot and still look quite good.
Tenslotte een nieuw lid voor onze spingroep. Of misschien toch niet. Gistermiddag nam Monique haar pup van tien weken oud mee. Van spinnen kwam bij haar niet veel. Saar de hond zat op schoot en sliep. Ze zakte af en toe bijna op de grond. Na verloop van tijd werd ze toch wakker. Leuk: allemaal tasjes en zakjes met wol op de grond. Als je die in je bek nam en er mee ging lopen, liep er altijd wel iemand achteraan!

Finally a new member for our spingroup. Or perhaps not. Yesterday Mopnique brought her 10-week-old pup to the meeting of the group. She couldn't do much spinning. Saar the dog sat on her lap and slept. Now and then she almost fell on the ground. After a while she woke up. Fun: all kind of bags on the floor, filled with fiber! When you took these in your mouth and ran away with it, there was always somebody running after you!